


You Haven't Aged a Day

by theartofprose



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Depression, Diary/Journal, Drug Use, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Reichenbach, Running from problems, Time Travel, Uni!lock
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-01
Updated: 2013-05-07
Packaged: 2017-12-10 02:33:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/780755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theartofprose/pseuds/theartofprose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Sherlock is sent forwards in time to Baker street, where John is still grieving for him after the Reichenbach Fall, he gets stuck in an emotional tug-of-war between his past love and notorious bad influence, Victor Trevor, and his future flatmate, John Watson.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Mess on Montague Street

**Author's Note:**

> Based on ineffableboyfriends' prompt:
> 
> Basically, I was just thinking of a pre-Reichenbach Sherlock, either in his university years or some time after he met John, going forward in time to meet the John during the three year Reichenbach separation. I want to see how Sherlock would react to John and vice versa. Obviously, it would be different reactions depending on what age the time-traveling Sherlock is. If it is Sherlock after he met John, it’d be nice to see him shocked at what he’s done to him. If it is Uni!lock, it’d be nice to see him shocked that someone would care about his so much. There can be much more than that or it can not include that at all…but I just want some sort of time traveling mmmmyes.
> 
> You can find her post here: http://ineffableboyfriends.tumblr.com/post/48483092864/hello-and-this-is-a-fic-prompt-that-you-guys-can
> 
> This work is a piece of fanfiction, based on the BBC series Sherlock written by Moffat and Gatiss, that is based on the works of Arthur Conan Doyle. I do not own the rights to the characters portrayed here. That being said, I have repeatedly used shameless paraphrasing.

The flat on Montague street was a right mess. Papers littered every surface that wasn’t already occupied by various erlenmeyer flasks and bunsen burners. There were trails of white powder along the desk and sick had permanently stained the floor. The kitchenette was full up of dishes that had never been properly cleaned, alongside nicked anatomical references and bins that were never emptied. The skull grinned from its post upon a precarious pile of unopened textbooks as it gazed fixedly out the dirty window.

  


Sherlock woke to the sound of running water and the groaning of pipes, feeling as though bees had taken up residence in his mouth and Mycroft had sat on his head. He groaned and rolled over, pressing his face into a jumper that smelled of tobacco and cheap perfume—definitely not one of his.

“Will you shut up!” he yelled at the noise.

“Ah, you’re awake then,” a voice called out from the loo. There was the grating click of a lighter and the tantalizing smell of cigarette smoke as the other man lit up.

“What are you doing here?” Sherlock asked, not being able to remember having let anyone in before he’d passed out.

“I live here, remember?”

Sherlock stared at him blankly.

“Tell me you haven’t deleted it again!”

The guilty pause that followed was all the confirmation he needed.

“Right. Victor Trevor? Your flatmate? The bloke who pays the rent so your arse of a brother can’t find you?”

More silence.

“Maybe sense memory will help,” Victor continued, as he leaned in to steal a kiss from Sherlock before pulling away at the last minute. “Or not,” he pouted, pointing to Sherlock’s face with a grimace.

A self-conscious hand to his lips revealed that he’d been sick. Again. Headache momentarily ignored, Sherlock pulled himself off of the floor and made his way to the loo, while Victor followed like an obnoxious shadow, blowing smoke rings.

“Do you even remember anything from last night?” he asked, after taking a long drag. “One minute you’re chatting up Mike and the next you’ve got Seb’s stash up your nose.”

“It was boring,” Sherlock replied, spitting mouthwash into the sink. “Mike was hardly putting up a challenge and you were otherwise occupied. Two blondes?” he asked, pointing to a long hair that had gotten stuck in Victor’s piercing. “And here I thought you only fancied blokes.”

“You thought I only fancied you.”

“I _know_ you only fancy me,” Sherlock countered, forcing an aggressive kiss on his flatmate, and stealing his fag for good measure.

  


Their flat is tiny, even by London’s standards, and the two men have crammed it full of odd bits and ends they seem to have accumulated in the two years they’d lived together. Sherlock picked up a woman’s thong he knew hadn’t been there earlier before tossing it across the room in disgust. He continued on, with the cigarette wedged between his teeth, clearing a path towards the table where he’d been testing his latest hit of cocaine. Sherlock took a long drag before flicking the cigarette into the beaker with the other butts. The release of endorphins the nicotine triggered was a soothing balm on his frayed mind.

“Oi!” Victor shouted, smacking the back of Sherlock’s head. “That was my last cig, you wanker!”

“Don’t be boring,” Sherlock replied, turning around to properly face the other man. “I’ll make it up to you,” he added, unzipping Victor’s trousers before dropping to his knees.

***

“Well that was tedious,” was Sherlock’s only comment, two hours later.

“You’re a sociopath.”

“You’re an idiot.”

“Do you always have to have the last word?”

“Yes,” Sherlock assured him, answering a question that had been purely rhetorical.

“If you weren’t so good in bed, I’d be long gone.”

“Like I’d let you leave.”

  


Sherlock then decided he’d sufficiently fulfilled his post-coital duties and could move on, taking the sheet with him as he shoved off the bed. Victor sighed as he’d once again been left on a lumpy mattress, debauched and wanting. Sherlock hardly noticed as he was too concerned with ransacking the flat to find Victor’s stash.

“You won’t find anything,” Victor called out, idly tracing out the cracks in the ceiling.

“Of course I will, just give me a mo’.”

“It’s gone, Shirley. The blondes and I fancied a go.”

Sherlock only paused his frantic searching long enough to shoot his flatmate a dark glare. Sherlock had always hated that nickname, which was precisely why Victor never hesitated to use it. The ruckus continued on for a few minutes until Sherlock found what he was looking for. Well, not quite. Victor managed to clear the bed just before he would have been hit by an empty Turkish slipper.

“Don’t be like that, love. I’m sure Seb can set us up tonight,” Victor told him with a cheeky grin.

“You! No. I’m not doing that again. If you want to sleep with him so badly, do your own legwork.”

“It was just a joke and you know it.”

  


In the end, necessity won out and Sherlock allowed himself to be dragged out to Sebastian Wilkes’ flat. By the time Victor and he had arrived, 60 people had already been crammed into the two bedroom flat and were shouting at eachother to compete with a stereo blasting music that should never have left the 80s. It was a garish affair and a poor knockoff of the party at Kevin’s place the week before. Sherlock was only there because of the tremors that had started in his hand and a headache hadn’t been alleviated with the pills, and because Victor had insisted. He knew he was in for too much hairspray, cheap booze, and plebeian entertainment, but Victor had assured him he’d get his fix. Sherlock groaned in annoyance at the coming ordeal and almost decided to cut his losses and leave, but Victor’s firm arm around his lower backside kept him on a collision course with the mob.

“Why you insist on socializing with that insufferable git is beyond my abilities to understand,” Sherlock told Victor as they entered the fray.

“Be nice,” he admonished. “And besides, Seb has connections. If you alienate any more of our ‘friends’ the only hits we’ll have left is whatever you can make with your chemistry set.”

“Fine. But don’t expect me to mingle with that lot.”

“I was rather counting on it.”

  


“Victor!” Sebastian Wilkes shouted, clapping his old mate on the shoulder and pulling him away from Sherlock. “Didn’t think you’d make it—not after last night, if you know what I mean,” he smirked at Victor who replied in kind.

At that point, Sherlock decided he’d had enough and pulled away to go in search of whatever booze they were serving, but Sebastian stopped him.

“And you brought the freak,” he said, still speaking to Victor, while looking Sherlock up and down like some sort of show animal. “Hey Kirsten!” he called to a girl across the room, getting her attention and waving her over. “This is Sherlock Holmes, one of Victor’s mates, the one with—with the—” he slurred.

“With the trick!” she remembered, turning her predatory grin on Sherlock.

“It’s not a trick.”

“He’s got this trick,” Sebastian continued, as thought he hadn’t been interrupted, “where with one look he can tell everything about you.”

“You some kind of psychic, then?” she joked.

“Don’t be crude. I observe. For example, I know you’re currently shagging two blokes and a girl. Now, Victor here’s promiscuous but even you could give him a run for his money.”

“Sherlock,” Victor warned, trying to cut him off.

“It’s quite simple really, you’re wearing some very nice jewelry for a student from a modest background. The ice from your necklace alone would have cost a month’s rent. I’d say middle-aged, wealthy and crudely sentimental. Sebastian could never afford it, seeing as his trust fund has been frozen—”

“That’s really not necessary—” Sebastian said, trying to stop him.

“Shh. It’s rude to interrupt,” Sherlock sneers at him before continuing. “Your girlfriend must have tipped them off about Sebastian’s extracurricular activities—no doubt a desperate cry for your attention. Of course, he could—”

Sherlock’s monologue was then interrupted as the brunette slapped him across the face before storming off.

“You just can’t keep your bloody mouth shut! Can you?” Sebastian shouted at him, before blaming Victor. “I told you not to bring him! Every bloody time!” he yelled as he stormed off in pursuit of Kirsten.

“Imbecile. He said he wanted to see ‘my trick’, he shouldn’t be that upset over it.”

“Sentiment, Sherlock,” Victor reproached him, before turning to follow the red-faced man. “Seb! Wait up!”

Sherlock stood there for a moment, with a red handprint forming on his cheek and worrying his tongue, before deciding to get that drink after all.

  


“Have you finished?” Sherlock asked Victor some time later, shifting his weight impatiently from foot to foot. It had taken him the better part of an hour to find Victor after he’d walked off in search of Sebastian. The growing throng of drunk uni students hadn’t exactly made matters easier. In fact, as the night went on word seemed to get out about his ‘trick’ and he’d had to brush off more demands for him to observe. He’d finally gotten away to find that Victor had been busy shagging some random bloke who wasn’t Sherlock in a broom cupboard.

“Shirley,” Victor sighed, pushing aside the bloke he’d been getting off. “We haven’t gotten what we came for yet.”

Sherlock would have disagreed, noting Victor’s undone trousers with the slight tear on the seam, his swollen lips and the used condom on the floor—clearly his friend hadn’t wasted the two hours they’d been here—but settled on the short, “I want to leave.”

“Don’t be like that, love. Why don’t you help that girl over there?” he suggested, directing Sherlock towards a figure stumbling down the hall, clearly drunk. “She looks like she could use a hand, even if she’s not your type.”

When Sherlock didn’t move or respond in some way, Victor pouted and added, “For me?” to seal the deal. He’d fully expected his flatmate to shout “Piss off!” and swan off, but to his surprise Sherlock conceded.

“Fine. But I want to leave as soon as you have the coke.”

“Of course, love.”

  


It didn’t take long for Victor to track down their dealer, to exchange goods for service and find his flatmate. It took even less time for Sherlock to shoot up. After that, everything was a bit of a blur.


	2. Blast From the Past

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The alley he’d woken up in was utterly unremarkable. There was an Italian restaurant, two shops, an old police box, and a particularly foul-smelling skip.

Sherlock woke up in his sick for the second time in two days. This was rapidly becoming an uncomfortable reoccurrence. His head felt like someone had shoved it against a vortex mixer and something particularly sharp-edged was digging into his back. As he became more aware of his surroundings, his nose was assaulted with the mixed scents of feces, cement dust and the ever-fragrant smell of decay. Even feeling the effects of hard liquor and a bad trip, he was aware enough to realize he’d spent the night in the gutter. Again.

The alley he’d woken up in was utterly unremarkable. There was an Italian restaurant, two shops, an old police box, and a particularly foul-smelling skip. Groaning and running a hand through his dark curls to dislodge any detritus, he made an inventory of his person. He knew his name and the date, nothing appeared to be broken (including his nose) and other than feeling as though he’d eaten a swarm of gnats his mouth was intact. Patting his pockets he found his wallet and key-ring had gone missing, although he did find a wrinkled £5 note in the band of his pants. What the hell?

Right. First things first: he’d need to freshen up and find somewhere to crash. He couldn’t go back to the flat on Montague street unless Victor was there to let him in because his keys had been lifted, which statistically wouldn’t happen until the next day. The last thing he could remember was his flatmate closing the door to Wilkes’ room, riding a high. Where else could he go? Victor was currently the middle man for his social life. There wasn’t anyone he knew from uni that would let him in without Victor to play buffer and he certainly wasn’t going to go to Mycroft for help. That man would cut off his nose to spite his face. Last week he had been contacted by a woman about a possible case. Her name was Hutton. No, that wasn’t right. Hampton? Henley? Hudson. Mrs. Hudson! Her husband was suspected of spousal abuse and homicide in the first degree, but the Met did not have enough evidence implicate him before he’d run away to Florida. Sherlock had made a note of her address in his mind palace: 221B Baker street. Checking his current location from the street sign on the building opposite him, Sherlock realized he could make it to Westminster without taking the Tube. Good, he only had a few pounds in his name, but that still left the matter of freshening up. Palming the bank note, Sherlock made his way down the street in search of a coffee shop.

  


A large coffee and a quick, but necessary trip to the loo later, Sherlock finally looked (and smelled) somewhat presentable. After he’d left the alley, the stench of the skip hadn’t seem nearly as bad as he’d first suspected, although he had attracted a few odd looks from morning commuters. Java in hand and morning-after pains alleviated, he finally began making his way to Baker street.

Sherlock was surprised to see how much Baker Street had changed in the week since he’d last seen Mrs. Hudson. The internet café beneath 221B had been converted into a sandwich shop called “Speedy’s” and the telephone box on the corner had been removed. Looking around, Sherlock began cataloguing other changes: a car that did not look like a Volkswagen Golf, a teenager in clothes that could only be described as garish and possibly a few sizes too small, as well as a woman talking into a mobile that was impossibly small, and in colour! Now that he noticed, it seemed nearly every person had an electronic device in their hands. Sherlock would’ve continued on with his observations if he hadn’t been interrupted by a sudden crash and someone calling out his name.

“Sherlock?”

Sherlock spun around, eyes wide, to see who had spoken. There was a man standing behind him, the very picture of shock, with groceries strewn about at his feet. His clothing was unremarkable, an old oatmeal-coloured jumper with worn jeans and leather shoes, and his watch certainly wasn’t a luxury item. His blond hair was cropped short in a way that begged military man, yet he lacked any other distinguishing marks of a man in active service. His expression was pained and his eyes glistened with excess moisture. Odd, Sherlock had no recollection of this person, nor any inkling of what could have caused such a sentimental reaction from a perfect stranger. Looking closer, Sherlock noticed dark bruises under his eyes and a patch of irritated skin where the man had touched it repeatedly, worried over it for an extended period of time; signs of a nervous condition, anxiety and probably depression. Still, Sherlock could not place him amongst any of his data.

“It’s you. It’s really you,” the man was saying.

“I’m sorry?” Sherlock asked, clearly confused. “Do I know you?”

But the other man didn’t seem to hear him. “We shouldn’t do this out here,” Sherlock was told.

The man quickly picked up the perishables he’d dropped, nervously glancing at the other pedestrians to see if anyone had noticed a disturbance.

“Quickly,” he put a firm hand on Sherlock’s elbow, and guided him towards the black door with golden numerals. “Come inside before anyone sees you.”

  


He was then led up the stairs without putting up too much protest, stunned by this person who seemed to recognize him. The short, sandy-haired man only let him go when they arrived in a sitting room, turning the younger man around to have a proper look at him.

“Oh my god. Oh. My. God. You’re not dead,” the man repeated, a mixture of surprise and relief colouring his face. “Of course you’re not dead. You’re _you_. Anyone who knows you shouldn’t be surprised—I couldn’t think—No, of course you did—Why on _earth_ didn’t you say anything?!”

“Listen,” Sherlock cut in, clearly confused, “I don’t know what you’re talking about—”

“I thought you were dead!”

“Um, no. Still alive. I don’t really fancy necrophilia; although there was that one time—”

“Stop this.”

“Look, I’m really only here to see Mrs. Hudson. She came to me last week about a case: her husband is a person of interest in a murder investigation—”

“Will you just shut up! For one second, please, just _stop_.”

“Alright. But I’m telling you now, I have no idea who you are.”

  


John isn’t sure what overcame him in that moment—probably shock—but before he knew it he was breathing hard and standing over his flatmate where he’d crumpled to the floor, unconscious.

What do you do when your flatmate comes back from the dead? What do you do when your un-dead flatmate says he doesn’t know who you are? In retrospect, knocking the living daylights out of Sherlock might not have been the best solution, but John felt it had been appropriate. John took a moment to let what happened sink in ( _Jesus_ ), before letting his medical training kick in and force his struggling mind on autopilot.

He began by checking the man’s pulse, before settling him into recovery position: moving the man’s ridiculously long limbs into place before carefully rolling him on his side towards John and folding his right arm to support his head. Then John took a moment to really look at his detective.

Even though it had been six months since he’d last seen Sherlock alive, John was surprised by how much rougher his flatmate appeared to be. His hair was undoubtedly more unkept and from the way he’d taken the fall, he was much lighter than he should be. John also made a note at how his sense of style seemed to have regressed. Sherlock was sporting a t-shirt and leather jacket with high-waist jeans that he would never have been caught dead in while he had been living with John, although John could certainly remember wearing something similar during the 90s.

John also noticed his haggard skin complexion, a gaunt shade he’d only seen on addicts and overdoses he’d treated while working in A&E. He knew Sherlock had a drug history and had often struggled with addiction but he hadn’t been actively using while they were living together. _Oh._ Oh no. Carefully, John pulls up Sherlock’s left sleeve, clearing the crook of his elbow to reveal track marks. The doctor breathes for a moment because the scarring appears to be at least a few months old before remembering that Sherlock’s narcotic of choice was cocaine. Without a second thought, he took out his penlight to check the mucus membranes in his nose. Sure enough, they were irritated with a few flecks of white powder. He’d begun using again. John sat back on his heels to process this. Had Sherlock been as devastated as John had been after faking his death? Why hadn’t he gotten help? When did drugs become his only option? Again, why hadn’t he gotten help? Was he so alone that there hadn’t been anyone else to keep him from using? Or worse, did they simply not care?

As those questions chased each other in his mind, John certainly noticed the way his heart twinged every time Sherlock had said he didn’t know him. He’d assured himself that he was no longer grieving for Sherlock (and why should he be, Sherlock wasn’t dead!), but he’d be lying if he didn’t admit that every time Sherlock had repudiated him he felt as though that same dark fear gripped his injured shoulder and threaten to drown him. Could it be due to amnesia? John was certain he’d seen Sherlock take the fall. What if he’d injured himself in the landing? He had had a head wound. Retrograde amnesia could be a possible explanation. Groundless speculation aside, John’s only choice was to wait for his best friend to wake up to answer his questions. He certainly didn’t have to wait long.

  


As soon as he saw Sherlock’s eyes flutter, John couldn’t help but offer a flood of apologies, even as he pressed a bag of frozen peas to his friend’s face.

"Sorry, so sorry. That doesn’t usually happen. I mean, there was that one time I chinned the Chief Superintendant, but he had just called you a “weirdo.” Okay, and I guess I did punch you that other time, but did you ask for it! Quite literally, too. You said—”

“John?” Sherlock asked, intending to stop the other man before he fell to pieces—an emotional outburst he was not prepared to deal with. “John, you can stop now.”

There was a sharp intake of breath before John asked hesitantly, “You remember?”

“No, of course not.”

“But you know my name.”

“Don’t be an idiot. It’s written on that envelope,” he said, gesturing to a discarded bill on the table addressed to Dr. John H. Watson.

“Oh,” John said simply, unable to hide his disappointment. “You really don’t know who I am, do you?”

“Clearly,” Sherlock replied, rubbing his sore jaw. “We haven’t met. I’d remember an army doctor with a psychosomatic limp and a tendency to sock perfect strangers on the jaw.”

“Which I apologized for.”

“Hm. I have no memory of meeting you, but you obviously seem to know me. That’s my skull sitting on your mantle, and you have no callouses on the tips of your fingers, so the violin by that leather chair must be mine. Looking further, there seem to be duplicates throughout the room: two chairs, two bookcases, two pegs on the door. Highly unlikely that a man on an army pension would spend the extra expense when he’s clearly living alone. This is a nice flat in Westminster, highly doubtful you’d be able to pay the rent without some form of help but there are no signs of a romantic attachment, so you’d need a flatmate. Judging by the eclectic nature of the decorating, I’d assume your flatmate is me. Odd. I’d think I’d remember living in a flat like this. Besides the infernal migraine, I don’t seem to have any type of head injury and my supposed memory loss manifested itself prior to you knocking my unconscious, so retrograde amnesia due to a traumatic injury is possible, but unlikely. You don’t seem the type to hang around uni parties, at least not the good ones, so—”

“Wait. Did you say uni?” John interrupted, realization dawning on him. “Sherlock, who’s the PM?”

“The PM? Well, that would be. . .” he trailed off, his mind going blank.

“Right. Nevermind. Useless trivia. Got it.”

“Yes,” Sherlock agreed, surprised this man would understand. “By now, even you must have reached the only remaining conclusion: time travel.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“John, what year is it?”

“2012.”

“Oh,” was the only reaction Sherlock could manage. What else do you say when you realize you've been catapulted twenty years in the future? Several emotions seemed to flash across his face in rapid succession: disbelief, fear, hurt, before settling on anger. “Did Victor put you up to this? I hope you had a good laugh, getting me to admit to time travel. Go ahead then. Joke’s on me; egg’s on my face.”

“Sherlock, calm down. Just breathe, alright? I don’t know anyone called Victor. We’ve both had a shock. It’s normal to be scared—”

“I’m not scared!”

“Well, I am. It’s not every day I find my dead flatmate on the stoop.”

“I’m not dead!”

“I know. I don’t know. How is this possible?”

“Obviously it must be. Everything points to it: the phones, the cars, the music, you! _Oh_.” Sherlock inhaled a shaky breath, suddenly unsure of himself now that his angry outburst had faded away. “If this is the future, then my flat’s probably been rented out. I don’t know anyone.” For the first time in a long time, he was lost. “Where will I go?”

“You could stay,” John told him, offering him a safe harbor without a second thought.

“What?”

“Stay here, with me. While you adjust, you could stay here. The rent’s taken care of and it’s safe. You could even have your old room if you wanted, I haven’t touched anything.”

“It’s not old if I can’t remember it, John.”

“Right. Just stay, okay? I’ll make tea and we can talk, properly this time. Then tomorrow we’ll go sort out everything with Lestrade.”

Sherlock nodded, not bothering to mention how he doesn’t know this Lestrade character or how he has no idea how he could possibly help, simply feeling overwhelmed by this stranger’s unrelenting need to offer comfort.

  


John rose to his feet and padded into the kitchen, leaving Sherlock alone with his thoughts and a thawing bag of peas. John tried not to ponder the metaphysical implications of what Sherlock had said ( _Time travel? Seriously? Of all the things—But that would mean Sherlock’s, my Sherlock, is still—_ ) while he filled the kettle and set it on the burner, before reaching for the tin of herbal mint and licorice tea and the box of biscuits Mrs. Hudson had set aside for him. It didn’t take long for the water to boil and John pulled it from the stove-top before the shrill whistle could make too much noise. When John returned to the sitting room, he found that Sherlock had moved to the couch where he'd promptly fallen asleep.

Setting the tea tray aside, John padded over to the linen closet and grabbed the orange blanket Sherlock had nicked a few years ago before draping it over his sleeping friend. John then took his RAMC mug and cautiously walked up the stairs to his own room, careful not to wake his flatmate.

  


The next morning, John woke up after the best night of sleep he’d had in months. He couldn’t remember his dreams, a rare occurrence these days any way, but he had a feeling they’d been nice for a change. Perhaps this meant a change for the better; maybe he would stop waking up in a cold sweat to images of a billowing coat on a falling man. He quickly pulled himself out of bed and pulled on his favourite jumper, spending a few minutes in the loo before grabbing the empty tea mug and heading downstairs to see how Sherlock was getting on. When he reached the sitting room his heart stuttered and skipped a beat. The orange blanket had been unceremoniously thrust aside and the lanky detective was gone.


	3. Dear John

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And then he was gone. Poof. John should have been devastated at the thought of being left alone again—abandoned without so much as an explanation—by his partner, but John couldn’t let himself think that way. He was at a loss and he was lost, but he knew one thing for certain: he wouldn’t be left sitting in the dark again, waiting for a man who would never come home. Not this time.

John felt the bottom of his stomach drop as he stood in the doorway, staring at the vacant sofa where Sherlock should have been. If it hadn’t been for the discarded blanket or how real Sherlock’s return had felt— _No, not his return_ , he corrected himself, _his Sherlock was still dead_ —John might have believed the entire experience was another hallucination brought on by insomnia and his PTSD. It certainly would have been a break from the explosions, gunshots and dead bodies that kept him awake at night. It wasn’t enough that his skin crawled every time his phone rang or whenever he heard an Irish accent. After his friend—after _Sherlock died_ —his post-traumatic stress had returned with a vengeance. Even with the few therapy sessions he could afford on his pension, John had been left without a support system. Even on his best of days, it was an up-hill battle to leave the flat and run through the motions of living. It was a miracle John had been able to keep 221B at all.

John felt tired. Old. Overdrawn. Stretched too thin. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could endure the anxiety of living day-to-day. If nothing else, the mundanity would drive him mad until he worked up the courage to do _something_. It had taken a few weeks, but eventually the reporters had lost interest in the “boffin Sherlock Holmes” and had left him alone to grieve. Months later, John was still alone but things were changing. Just when he felt he’d reached a turning point, a milestone, Sherlock had come _back_. And then he was gone. Poof. John should have been devastated at the thought of being left alone again—abandoned without so much as an explanation—by his partner, but John couldn’t let himself think that way. He was at a loss and he was lost, but he knew one thing for certain: he wouldn’t be left sitting in the dark again, waiting for a man who would never come home. Not this time.

But where had that impossible man gone? Where would he have run to?

  


Making his way through the flat, John considered his options: he could go to Mycroft or he could phone Lestrade for help or he could try to find Sherlock himself. He immediately dismissed the thought of running to Mycroft for anything. Somehow, the thought of involving the man with the power of the British Government left a bitter taste in his mouth. It was not simply that John blamed Mycroft for Sherlock’s suicide: in the past, Sherlock’s older brother had paid no attention to personal loyalty and was known to completely disregard boundaries. John knew that if Mycroft even suspected of Sherlock’s ‘time-jump’ he would have his brother sectioned and buried so far beneath the National Secrets Act that he’d never see the light of day again.

John could phone Lestrade for help. Using Lestrade’s position with the Met, they could easily canvass the local hospitals and other public places looking for Sherlock. Then again, he knew asking his friend for help wasn’t right either. Using proper channels would only allow them to cover so much ground; Lestrade would only be able to find Sherlock if he’d been in some sort of accident, or had been detained. John doubted either of those things had happened in the little time Sherlock had been missing.

John barely understood how Sherlock had come from the past himself, how could he possibly explain it to another person and have it make a lick of sense? Time-travel simply wasn’t possible, and yet Sherlock had come home. John collapsed on the couch and buried his face in the orange blanket, as though Sherlock’s smell would help him get answers. The blanket smelled of cheap cologne, cigarettes and something unquantifiably Sherlock. He waited a few minutes expectantly but it was no use. John wasn’t a bloodhound, or a consulting detective.

John’s logic only left one alternative: finding Sherlock himself. But where would he even start? Presuming that this Sherlock and the Sherlock that John remembered were the same person, where would John even begin to look for him? John knew next-to-nothing about Sherlock’s time in uni. Most of the time, Sherlock had kept to himself until the situation required he explain his thinking to John. While this seemed to happen often, it had always been about a deduction or a case. Sherlock had never needed to deduce himself and John had never been able to guess. He’d never find the information on Sherlock’s website and John highly doubted his friend had ever told Mrs. Hudson. That was when John decided to do something he had promised himself he would never do: if he was going to find out where Sherlock had gone, he would have to do his research. After the funeral, John had taken all of Sherlock’s papers and notebooks and case-files and had moved them into the bedroom where they now sat collecting dust. John had never gone through them, believing that reading his flatmate’s papers was too invasive.

  


With a groan, John got off the sofa and laboriously made his way to Sherlock’s room, one hand on the wall to make sure his leg didn’t give out from the stress. The wooden door creaked as John pried it open, stiff from disuse. Sherlock’s room was untouched; it lay exactly as he’d left it six months ago. A stillness had settled among the furniture that had been tucked away in this back room, completely at odds with the whirlwind personality of its former occupant. A layer of dust had gathered on the bed, giving it a vaguely fuzzy appearance. The microscope and glassware had not moved from where John had placed them on the desk. At the very centre of the room lay the boxes John was looking for. Four of the most nondescript cardboard boxes had been used to house a multitude of colourful notebooks. Some were bound with leather; some were inexpensive, like the kind you’d find in a primary school; some appeared to be lab books, where Sherlock had meticulously noted and described each of his experiments; and others had been almost completely destroyed in what John assumed was a fit of rage, so much so that he could hardly imagine their original appearance. Each of the notebooks had a date inscribed in the cover, indicating when they’d been used. As far as he could tell, the dates ranged from when Sherlock had been a small child to when he’d died. John carefully ignored the more recent journals in favour of one from 1990 and settled down to do his reading.

As he sat on the bed, dust motes were whirled into the air, creating a mini-cyclone as they refracted the light streaming in through the dirty window-pane. The very air seemed to be impregnated with Sherlock’s memories, and in that moment John did not feel alone. With a resigned sigh, John flipped to a random page and began to read what was written there in an elegant, yet careless hand.

_10/05/1990; 18:27  
Classes were dreadful, again. . . . Particularly the part where we were subjected to a 46 minute lecture on the woes of academia by a professor whose grant proposal was refused. If I had not determined this last bit of information, I would have suspected he had been submitting us to an ill-thought out experiment in educational psychology—per the request of a graduate student, no doubt. While I did take pleasure in observing the reactions and actions of those who were forced to endure the lecture, I must admit that even my observations were very dull. There must be someone at this university who is not solely interested in following through a pre-determined path like an in-bred lab specimen._

_10/08/1990; 14:38  
Finally something useful! I had begun to think indulging in Philosophy had been a mistake until Professor Higgins kindly went into detail about the memorization technique of loci (per my asking, of course). While the lecture had been focused on Plato and Aristotle’s treaties on memory and mnemonic techniques, I did not find it a stretch to inquire about Cicero’s method as he described it in “De Oratore.” And what a technique it is! Elegant, yet suitable for a person such as myself who does not wish to be limited by books or plebeian flashcards. I shall describe it in as much detail as I remember it, although I see no such need to do so in future as I shall be able to put loci into practice. I think a mind palace would do the trick._

_11/23/1990; 11:13  
That horrid woman from the Department of Chemistry has yet again refused to allow me to take the courses I wish. Simply because I have no desire to study the courses mentioned in the registry, she feels it is her prerogative to hand me an ultimatum. As much as it disgusts me, I shall have to talk to Mycroft. I simply can’t work in these conditions. Just as well that I leave this pedantic institution sooner rather than later. If I weren’t confident in my own intelligence, I might wish for a recognized profession simply to avoid the tediousness an institution’s attempts to repress unexplored avenues. As a consulting detective, I shall have no need of a degree in Chemistry, as I shall have to master all the forensic sciences in order to perfect my deductions._

The journals from 1991 and early 1992 were much the same, echoing John’s memories of his flatmate. Much to John’s amusement, the entries often carried small notes, such as his favourite: _Note: I really like beans and peas._

The entries seemed to follow Sherlock’s trains of thought, not a Juvenalian calendar. There seemed to be weeks between entries, or sometimes no time at all. After a few pages of a particularly long deduction about a biochemistry professor’s off-the-books research that had him in stitches at certain points, John found what he had actually been looking for.

_03/14/1992; 12:15  
After the disastrous events of 03/08/1992, I have finally found someone willing to share a flat with. He introduced himself to me as Victor Trevor and it seems that he too is wishing to leave regulated housing in favor of charming flat he’s found on Montague street._

John frowned at the shortness of the entry and the author’s usual lack of explanation. Sherlock had never told him about Victor Trevor when they’d been living together, but he seemed to recall the younger man mentioning him the night before. John parsed through a few of the other journals from around the same period before he found another mention of this Victor Trevor in one of the lab books.

 _Victor Trevor. Male. 21 years. 1.87m. Brown hair with pigment dissociation. May be due to UV exposure. Curly. Subject would describe it as honey. Eyes are blue with hazel flecks. See notes in Griffiths’_ Genetic Analysis _for allele break-down. Left-handed with a developed callous on his middle finger. Short fingernails indicate musical tendencies. Perhaps another violinist?_  
 _Habits: I have noted that he consumes moderate amounts of caffeine-infused drinks as well as a distinct tendency to refer to his friends as . . ._

The entry continued on in the same manner, effortlessly demonstrating Sherlock’s tendency to analyze everything he sees with scientific interest. After a page, John felt uncomfortably intimate with a man he’d never met. A few pages later, he decided to set the lab book down in favor of another journal that seemed to cover when Victor and Sherlock were flatmates.

_04/04/1992; 1:03  
Victor and I have shared this tiny flat on Montague street for 21 days and he has yet to mention any of my quirks that seem to irk others. Twice now I have brought home anatomical references to dissect and twice have they been blissfully ignored. Victor may not be the most brilliant of companions, but our ability to coexist is unparalleled._

_04/12/1992; 3:16  
Victor first initiated what he calls the ‘flatmate agreement’ today. It appears that he will tolerate my not-talking and violin-playing at all hours if I agree to sleep with him. I’ve never been attracted to anyone before, nor have I felt the need to satisfy myself in that way. It’s just biology, but it appears that Victor believes that an active sexuality is a sign of moral superiority. I do not care either way, but Victor cares. I agreed. It seemed the most sensible decision._

_Victor says that most blokes doubt their sexuality in uni._

_Victor noticed I wasn’t comfortable with my body. He allowed me to measure him, to acquire data on certain expressed phenotypes and various dimensions of his genitalia, so that I can be comfortable with him._

_Victor was upset that I told the girl he was with about my deductions. He told me to “piss off.” He’s never been that angry with me before._

_Victor apologized. Apparently he was having a bad day. He asked me to forget it and to try cocaine he’d gotten off a friend._

_Victor came back to the flat with more stimulants today. I’m not sure who Victor’s supplier is. He makes sure I can’t find out so that I’m dependent on him to get high._

_Victor brought another person back to the flat today. He’s never done that before. He said he wanted to try a threesome. I thought it was an experiment. Apparently he’s done this before._

_Victor gave me a fantastic blow-job yesterday. He says it’s to apologize for bringing the other bloke around._

_Victor said I need him. I care too much about him to say no anymore. I’ve never needed anyone before._

_Victor promised._

_Victor cares._

_Victor’s special._

_Victor. Victor. Victor._

Victor Trevor. 21. Flatmate and lover of Sherlock Holmes.

Held captive as a deer before headlights, John could not tear himself away from Sherlock’s descriptions of Victor Trevor. Entransed, he was subject to each of their trysts. As Sherlock unerringly described each moment with scientific detachment, John could not make the same distinction and felt himself push closer to the edge of a pit of despair at every touch, at every kiss, at every cry of ecstasy Victor could wrest from Sherlock’s lips.

Before Sherlock’s death, they had never discussed the subject of any relationship beyond that of flatmates. They’d never had the opportunity. The tension had been there, like a neon pachyderm in their sitting room. Everyone had assumed they were together and Sherlock had never bothered to correct them, even though John unerringly tried to assert his antiquated idea of his own sexuality. Reading the transcript of a relationship he could have had, John could not help but feel the aching regret Sherlock’s words caused. It was almost a relief when John was witness to the way Victor Trevor mercilessly took advantage of the brilliant man, yet Sherlock never seemed to realize it and that only filled John with anger. As he read the last entry in the leather-bound volume, his self-loathing did not ease.

Throughout 1992, there seemed to be a reoccurring dichotomy between Sherlock wishing he could understand normal relationships (like Victor’s short attractions to various female students, or the way Victor talked to him) and Sherlock hating himself for wanting to understand normal relationships (or as he phrased it, “Sentiment is a waste of my talents. It is irrational and has no place in proper scientific inquiry.”). For close to 80 pages, he had continued on in a similar fashion, although none seemed quite so violent as the entry where Mycroft had suggested his inability to apply himself to his studies was due to Asperger’s. It had been the most difficult entry to read, simply because Sherlock had continually blacked out portions of the writing—similar to how films depicted redacted material—so John was only able to put together what had happened based on his knowledge of the man. Yet throughout all the journals never once did Sherlock seem to demonstrate the qualities that John had admired when they’d first met, such as hidden smiles when he thought John couldn’t see him or dashes of brilliance that left him in awe, and that bothered John. It was as if this Sherlock and his Sherlock were _different people._

And then the journal entries just stopped. There was a gap between Sherlock’s last entry in 1992, about another party Victor would drag him to in hopes of getting high, and the first case Sherlock had taken as a consulting detective in 2002. Whatever had happened in those ten years, Sherlock had never felt the need to write it down.

  


As he set the last journal in the box, John could no longer contain his anxiety as to what Sherlock was doing. Having spent the last few hours getting to know this new Sherlock, John could no longer reject the notion of seeking help from Lestrade. John barely paused in the doorway of Sherlock’s room before padding throughout the flat in search of his mobile. A few minutes of searching through the sitting room, beneath the sofa cushions, among the clutter on the mantel, John finally found his mobile tucked under the cushion of Sherlock’s chair. John couldn’t remember the last time he’d sat in the leather armchair. A few seconds later, he was holding the device to his ear, waiting for the Detective Inspector to pick up.

“Lestrade.”

“Greg, I need your help. Sherlock’s gone missing and I can’t track him down by myself. I need you to put in calls to local A&E, maybe even an all-points bulletin.” John continued on, without missing a beat. “He will most likely be lost and disoriented, maybe even high.”

“John? Calm down. Have you taken anything?” Lestrade asked. “Sherlock’s dead. He couldn’t have survived a fall like that.”

Oh God. He’d completely forgotten. How had he forgotten? John realized he must sound like a raving lunatic, going on about seeing his ‘dead’ flatmate. Lestrade was going to have him sectioned.

“I know. I was there.” John pinched the bridge of his nose, wracking his brain for a suitable explanation to tell Lestrade without sounding mental. “It’s hard to explain. He was here yesterday and he’s gone now. I don’t know where he went, but he’s probably wandering around the city.”

“Hold on. I need you to think, John. You’re having another hallucination. We’ve talked about this, remember? Last time you said you saw him on the tube, before that you said he was following you through Picadilly, and then you saw him in the waiting room of the A&E. It’s the stress. You told me that. There was a funeral, and you started seeing your therapist again. Sherlock’s gone, mate. He’s been dead for months.”

“No!” John shouted into the mobile, frustrated that he wasn’t getting his point across. He ran his hand through his short blonde hair and turned around, grasping at straws. “You don’t have to believe me,” he said breathlessly, feeling overwhelmed by another wave of anxiety. Even now, Sherlock could be lying in a ditch somewhere or up to his neck in trouble. “Just, keep an eye out for him, will you?”

There was a pause on the other end of the line before Lestrade answered him. It sounded as though he was having a conversation with someone else. “Listen, I have to go. We’ve just got a lead on our Montcalm case, and if we don’t close this one the Superintendent will have my head. I’ll try and stop by after shift. See how you’re holding up. Yea?”

“Sure,” John replied halfheartedly and waited for the line to go dead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As I kept writing ahead and filling in my outline, the more I realized I needed this chapter. I didn't exactly plan to take 3,000 words to talk about John's reaction. It's one of those things that John decided that he wanted to do and wouldn't take no for an answer. Did a little reshuffling, but I felt it was important to have John's perspective before we find out what Sherlock's been up to.
> 
> I took the idea for Sherlock's notebooks from notebooks that the British Romantic poet, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, kept. The note "Note: I really like beans and peas," is one of his.
> 
> I also felt that Sherlock's writing process would be a lot more disjointed than most people's—probably simply because he doesn't seem to think the same way most people do. Or at least that's my impression.
> 
> I hope that makes everything clear (or clearer in any case). I'm off to work on the next few chapters so I can get them up in a timely manner, but I do have a midterm next week so who knows.
> 
> Thank you for reading. :)


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